“But, father,” says Matt, “you’re not going to carry the fish on your back?”
“They won’t carry me on theirs,” David laughs, regaining his good-humor as the critical moment arrives. “What would the mother think if we came home without a prize in tow! Avast there! I’ll larn you how I’ll get out of carryin’ ’em on my back.”
And with a chuckle he launches himself into the eddy, and shoots forward with a vigorous side-stroke. “This side up with care,” he cries cheerily. “Jump, sonny, straight for’ards.” And in a moment the man and the boy are swimming hard for the strip of shore directly opposite the sand island, the spot where they had left their coats hours before; but neither has the slightest expectation of reaching it, for the tide is sweeping them with fearful velocity to the right of it, so that their course is diagonal; and if they make land at all, it will be very far from their original starting-point. David keeps the boy to port, and adjusts his stroke to his. After a while, feeling himself well buoyed up by the handles, Matt breathes more easily, and gradually becomes quite happy, for the water is calm on the surface, and of the warmth and color of tepid café au lait, quite a refreshing coolness after the tropical air, and he watches with pleasure the rosy haze deepening into purple without losing its transparency. They pass sea-gulls fighting over the dead fish which Matt left behind, and which have been carried ahead of him in their unresisting course.
“We’re drifting powerful from them thar coats,” grumbles David. “ ’Twill be a tiresome walk back. If it warn’t for them we could cut across country when we make port.”
Matt strains his vision to the left, but sees only the purple outline of Five Islands, and in the far background the faint peaks of the Cobequid Hills.
“Waal, I’m darned!” exclaims his father, suddenly. “If them thar coats ain’t comin’ to meet us, it’s a pity.”
And presently, sure enough, Matt catches sight of the coats hastening along near the shore.
“We must cut ’em off afore they pass by,” cries his father, hilariously. “Spurt, sonny, spurt. ’Tis a race ’twixt them and us.”
Sea-birds begin to circle low over their heads, scenting David’s fish; but he pushes steadily on, animating his son with playful racing cries.
“We oughter back the coats,” he observes. “They’ve backed us many a time. Just a leetle quicker,” he says, at last, “or they’ll git past yonder p’int, and then they’re off to Truro.”